Exhumed Films is an American "organization devoted to showing

horror movies Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

for the benefit of their fans."

History

Based in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Exhumed Films was founded in 1997 by Dan Fraga, Joseph A. Gervasi, Harry Guerro and Jesse Nelson to exhibit obscure horror and exploitation films. Their first screening took place on October 24, 1997, at the Harwan Theatre in

South Jersey South Jersey, also known as Southern New Jersey, comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located between Pennsylvania and the lower Delaware River to its west, the Atlantic Ocean to its east, Delaware to its south, ...

and consisted of a double feature of films by

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

director

Lucio fulci Lucio Fulci (; 17 June 1927 – 13 March 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including Commedia all'italiana, comedies and spagh ...

: ''

Zombie A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folkl ...

'' and ''

The Gates of Hell ''The Gates of Hell'' () is a monumental bronze sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from the '' Inferno'', the first section of Dante Alighieri's ''Divine Comedy''. It stands at 6 metres high, 4&nb ...

''. With the earnings from the first show, the group planned another event the following February and officially took on the name "Exhumed Films." Since its founding, Exhumed Films has hosted "over 70 film screenings in seven different theatres across New Jersey and Philadelphia" as well as working with Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema and the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Exhumed Films screens film prints instead of digital video for aesthetic reasons.

Screening locations

Exhumed Films originally presented screenings at the Harwan Theatre in Southern

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, with a one-off 3-D presentation of ''Friday the 13th 3-D'' at the now-defunct GCC North East Theater in Philadelphia. When the Harwan closed, exhumed moved on to present screenings at a nearby Hoyts Theatre until that location also closed. Following the closure of Hoyts, Exhumed screenings took place at Cinemark Theater in Somerdale, New Jersey. In 2002, Exhumed began screenings at the Broadway Theatre in

Pitman, New Jersey Pitman is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Gloucester County, New Jersey, Gloucester County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 8,780, a decrease of 231 (−2.6%) from the 2010 Un ...

. Exhumed screenings took place at the Broadway from 2002 until 2005. Since 2005, Exhumed Film's primary venue has been th
International House Philadelphia

24-Hour Horror thon

Exhumed Film's annual 24-Hour Horror thon is a 24-hour program of horror

features Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...

shorts Shorts are a garment worn over the pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to the knees but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" because they ar ...

, and

trailers Trailer may refer to: Transportation * Trailer (vehicle), an unpowered vehicle pulled by a powered vehicle ** Baggage trailer, a large flatbed baggage trolley ** Bicycle trailer, a wheeled frame for hitching to a bicycle to tow cargo or passen ...

. The Horror-thon has previously been held the weekend before or after

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

, although the 2010 program took place October 30–31. The 2008 Horror thon took place over the weekend switchover for Daylight Saving time, making that year's program 25 hours instead of 24. The first Horror thon took place in 2007 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Exhumed Films. Each Horror thon has taken place at th
International House Philadelphia
The lineup for each year's Horror thon is kept secret.” Attendees are given a booklet with clues as to what films will be shown. For the 2011 show, the film ''The Dead'' (2010) was shown in its Philadelphia premiere, marking the first time any of the films in the show lineup had been announced in advance.

Footnotes

{{Reflist

External links

Exhumed Films
- Exhumed Films Official site
Diabolic DVD
- Diabolic DVD
Exhumed Films on Facebook

Unofficial Horrorthon Fan site
Film organizations in the United States Culture of Philadelphia